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Panama Days 4-8 – Stick a Fork in Me

Dropped the ball on updating this in the last few days. Mainly because *spoiler alert* things have not gone well.

Ive bust all the tournaments I was due to play (and even a couple more). I ran deep in pretty much all of them, but when the time came to win a crucial hand it didn’t end well. There’s always a defining hand that can kick start your tournament or knock you down, and this festival has been pretty cruel in its results. Whether that’s fading that flush draw with an overpair or hitting your flush draw instead, I’ve lost the lot. Its poker.

Although it does feel like a case of run-bad, in reality it’s 7 tournaments with one cash. It just feels that much worse live than online. I wouldn’t bat an eyelid to this stat online as I believe I’ve probably gone 20/30 tournaments without cashing on occasions. The bigger buy-ins and the fact you’re investing so much time just one tournament at a time makes it seem worse than it actually is.

There was one tournament that was looking good for a period of time – the $220 deepstack.

I had a decent stack just playing ABC poker. I didn’t pull any moves and was playing really tight. It’s not necessarily my normal game but it seemed to be working. A number of hours in however I decide to start piling the pressure and the first bluff I threw all tournament backfired. You can see my twitter for details, but it resulted in a player calling off his tournament life with K2 on a K57QJ board, and put me back into the mix with 15bb that never got going again.

Lesson learned. If a system is working, even if it’s not your normal game, stick to it.

So the week has been a bust, a disappointment. At times I have wished there was a punchbag on the way out of the tournament hall, but I have no regrets. I’ve composed myself well. For the most part I’ve played some really good poker and I’ve met a bunch of friendly people I’ll no doubt bump into at future events.

It’s tempting to register another $220 deepstack tomorrow but I think its time to take a couple of days downtime and check out the city. There’s little point in visiting these places and not actually taking the time to make the most of it. I’ve booked a proper tour for Monday morning on my final day. Got to see what all the fuss is about – apparently there’s a canal somewhere.

On the Poker front, things to look forward to include the Cash Game Festival in May (I think) and I’ve got my eye on a WSOP circuit event in Rotterdam in August. The beauty of Poker is that there’s always another event. There’s always another place to visit.

Ive also been contacted to possibly feature on a twitch channel to follow some of my online endeavours. It’s an exciting opportunity. I’ll let you guys know if this pans out.

Although Panama wasn’t all I had hoped for I remain positive for the future. Looking back in a couple of years, hopefully this will just be a minor blip on the road to playing the WSOP main.